Tom Hanks: ‘I Have Absolute 100% Faith in the American People and the Concept of What Is Right and What Is Wrong’

EXCERPT:

HANKS: “Well, you don’t have to go back very far to believe as early as 1939 and 1940 and big parts of 1941 there was a huge vocal section of the United States of America that said, no way. Charles Lindbergh led the America First. There were literally Nazi party rallies in Madison Square Garden, in which Adolf Hitler and George Washington — their images were up on stage at the same time. It wasn’t until, of course, that we were attacked that everybody kind of, like, wised up and realized that something very venal was going on in the world. You can’t help but wonder, where would we be right now? And I have absolute 100 percent faith in the American people and the concept of what is right and what is wrong. And if something as definitive as what happened in Europe back then, I don’t think there’d be any question that it would take time, that it would not be overnight. It would be thought out and it would be, I think, taking into account all the lessons that were learned of what happens when you don’t do it right over a long course of time.”